Research Paper Series No. 160 Proceedings of Seminar on Peter
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Research Paper Series No. 160 Proceedings of seminar on Peter Clark`s “Cities in East and West” Edited by Peter Clark1 and Masaru Yoneyama2 March, 2016 1 University of Helsinki, 2 Tokyo Metropolitan University 1 Peter Clark, Cities in East and West 2 Proceedings of a seminar on On October 31 2015∗ At the International House, Tokyo Metropolitan University Presented by ‘Tokyo Study Group in a Comparative Urban History’ Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) 26380432, Grant-in-Aid for Research on Priority Areas, Tokyo Metropolitan University and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) have financed this seminar. List of Contributors. Kaoru Ugawa: Rikkyo (St.Paul's) University Peter Clark: University of Helsinki, Visiting Fellow of Tokyo Metropolitan University Masaru Yoneyama: Tokyo Metropolitan University Takashi Kato:Waseda University Chika Takatani: Kyoto University Masayuki Furukawa: Waseda University Kinichi Ogura: Waseda University Minoru Yasumoto: Komazawa University ∗ Prof.Peter Clark also gave a lecture on Migration and Apprenticeship and held another seminar at Tokyo Metropolitan University on November 7. In this seminar (also organized by Prof.Yoneyama and chaired by Prof.Yasumoto,) most of the contributors of this research paper , Prof. Tatsuyuki Karasawa(Takasaki City University of Economics) ,Prof.Tadashi Nakano(Waseda University )and Dr. Miyuki Takahashi (Rissho University)commented. Peter Clark also gave a lecture on Urban Wasteland and Urban Green Space at University of Kobe organized and chaired by Prof. Kimio Shigetomi on November 4. 3 Opening address Kaoru Ugawa Thank you for your kind introduction. My name is Ugawa. I would like to say a few words of greeting on behalf of the Tokyo Study Group in Comparative Urban History. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to attend the lecture and seminar of Prof. Peter Clark who comes to Japan to be with you today at the invitation of the Japan society for the promotion of science. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Prof. Yoneyama, Tokyo Metropolitan University, and Prof. Yasumoto, Komazawa University, and Prof. Nakano Waseda University for their preparation of this seminar. Our Study Group has now been in existence for more than forty four years, and, though on a small-scale, I think that our field of specialisation corresponds to that of Professor Clark. On a personal level, I had started research of the British agrarian history, about 50 years ago, when I decided to begin a new subject of research in the field of Comparative Urban History. I consulted with Professor Hisao Otsuka who had been my supervisor. He said 'I always wondered who was going to be the first scholar in the field of Comparative Urban History, and now I find it is you.' He gave me an encouraging smile. Which I remember as if it were yesterday. Today I return to my first resolution, and listen to Professor Clark's lecture with you, the researchers who have gathered here in the same spirit. I hope you will allow me to be a member of this seminar. Thank you very much. 4 Ｌｅｃｔｕｒｅ 5 Cities in East and West Peter Clark Thanks to the Japanese Society for funding my fellowship in Japan and making possible this lecture and seminar. Lecture today draws on two of my works. My European Cities and Towns (Oxford, 2009) and The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History (Oxford, 2013) In 2007, for the first time, the majority of the world’s inhabitants lived in cities rather than the countryside. The world has become, in some measure, truly urban. No less striking was the proliferation of large cities. Currently there are over 400 cities with over a million inhabitants and more than 100 exceeding 3 million, compared to only one city ( Edo, modern Tokyo) with over a million people in the 18th century. How has this critical transition come about? How did global city systems evolve and interact in the past? What was the role of cities within societies and how did this compare between regions? Between cities of the East and West? It is the fundamental contention of my work that the comparative study of the world’s urban communities in the past is a precondition for understanding contemporary and future urban development on a global basis. In this lecture I want to talk first about the literature on comparative urban history; then secondly at the broad trends in global urban development; and finally focus on institutional differences and similarities between cities in the East and West. Although the last few years has seen renewed and growing work on comparative urban history, already 50 or 60 years ago there was lively interest in comparative research. One early influence came from Robert Park and the Chicago School which tried to construct a general model of the city, though most of their detailed analysis was modelled on American cities. This had a major impact in the US and Britain after the 2nd World War. Another impetus came from the French Annales School which again after the Second World War under the influence of Braudel compared developments across Europe and the Mediterranean . For the comparison of cities in East and West, perhaps the most important work was Max Weber’s The City, first published in German 1921 but becoming widely known after its translation into English in 1958. A leading German sociologist Weber’s study argued strongly for the distinctive civic and communal identity of the European city rooted in its medieval Christian heritage with important levels of urban autonomy and community consciousness, with strong municipal institutions, which made them centres of innovation. In contrast he saw the cities of the Middle East and Asia, as endowed with no municipal institutions and an undeveloped sense of identity and overshadowed and stultified by powerful despotic states. 6 Weber’s argument provoked fierce debate and has been largely discredited, though it gave important momentum to comparative work on Islamic cities and Chinese cities and continues to be discussed. One major criticism is that much of his analysis of the European city is centred around the flourishing German imperial cities and North Italian city states of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. These cities did enjoy considerable autonomy and success at that time. But in many other parts of Europe cities often exercised only limited autonomy or none at all. In England for instance only just over 100 towns out of 700 or so had a borough charter and municipal autonomy of some kind. In Northern Europe an equally limited number of towns enjoyed a measure of autonomy. In England and Northern and Eastern Europe many towns were heavily dependent on the king or local landowners. A second major criticism of weber is that from the 16th century the rise of nation states in Europe increasingly eroded much of the independence of cities. Even in Germany and Northern Italy municipal institutions were often undermined. Thirdly, work on Asian cities has shown that even where there were no formal urban institutions informal power groups or elites and informal institutions such as associations could play an important role in urban political and social life. A fourth major criticism of Weber is that he assumes that the Western cities generally perform better, are more dynamic, than their Eastern counterparts. But as we will see, the global urbanisation process in the past was far from being consistent, predictable or sustained. It was characterised by a roller coaster of developments with waves of expansion followed by deceleration, even de-urbanisation. At certain times expansion (and sometimes contraction) was a general, near-global process- as in the great era of city growth from Asia to Europe during the 11th to 14th centuries. But not at other times, as in the 17th and 19th centuries when first Europe, and then later China and India stood outside the main urbanisation trends. Let us look now at the broad urbanisation trends across the world. But first a word of background. Cities appear to have originated in Mesopotamia around 3200 BC and then spread to the Nile river valley and thence across the Mediterannean world. Cities also emerge on an important scale in the Indus valley (2600 BC-1900 BC) and in China by 1400 BC. By the first century AD developed urban systems are found in a number of regions of the world : across the Mediterranean and into the Middle East, largely under Roman rule; but also extending its tentacles across the Sahara into northern Africa ; in northern and western India; and in China under the Han. There are also early Mayan developments in central America. However for an extended period from the 3rd century AD there was growing instability in the existing urban systems and no indication of any new urban developments. The Greco-Roman network divided into the Eastern and Western Empires and then suffered major decline especially in the West. In the Middle East Arab Muslim conquests led to short term upheaval with ancient cities attacked but new ones established. Chinese cities during the age of the Six Dynasties suffered from instability and warfare. Political instability- tribal invasions into urban Europe; Muslim invasions of the Byzantine empire; 7 political upheavals in India and China - had an impact. But so did the spread of pandemics, especially bubonic plague from the 3rdnd century, decimating populations, disrupting agriculture, disturbing long- distance trade . All this contributed to urban stagnation or instability. From the 9th century however the world seems to have enjoyed an extended period of urban expansion stretching from Europe to the Middle East and Asia. It was remarkable not only for apparently high urban rates but for the proliferation of mega cities in the Middle East and China- Baghdad with up to a million inhabitants in the 12th century, Cairo with perhaps half a million, Kaifeng with up to 1.4 m in the 12th century, Hangschou with around a million in the 13th- in comparison no European city probably had more than 250,000 people.